wild strawberry on periwinkle

8/10/99

Someone please correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t it a little bit strange when one is temping and one’s supervisor asks one to forge a client’s signature on an evaluation form?

Just asking. I don’t know anyone who’s had that happen to them.

My supervisor at this temp gig was a total sweetie, anyway. When I finally finished typing every goddamn thing in the office, it was about 2:30. He sent me home, but signed my sheet as having worked until 4. And he insisted that I be paid for my lunch breaks, which made me feel like I should have taken a half hour instead of an hour. He gave me the choice! I thought I’d just shift the time, I didn’t think he’d pay me for it!

He also mentioned that he’d ask for me again. So my first temping job was a success. I think.

Weirdo things going on in the sky, here. I’m not talking about tomorrow’s eclipse, either—there’s not much chance I’ll see that. I mean the plain old sky. It’s so...different.

For one thing, it’s closer. Smaller. One of my roommates at Michigan told me that the sky in Michigan is bigger than in Virginia, where she came from. Though I’d no idea what she was talking about, I was proud. Big sky! Michigan is a very flat state. Flat, and low. Drive out in the country and you’ll see corn, a horizon of trees, perhaps a lake or six. But it’s all flat; up north there are a few hills and “mountains.” The sky really is huge.

When I visited Oregon, I suddenly knew what she’d meant. I felt closer to the sky. When we drove into the mountains, I felt like I was in the sky. In Michigan, the sky is always far above your head. Even in the Willamette Valley, between the mountains, I felt like I was propped up closer to the sky. I remember thinking how close the clouds were. And the sky had edges. It ended right where the mountains stood.

I don’t really live in the mountain part of Georgia. Still, Warner Robins is hilly. Today I walked out of the grocery store and had to stop in the parking lot. I’d noticed that the store is on a hill. From Publix I could see the hills in the northeast. The sky ended there.

The clouds here struck me the first day—I felt that same thing that I had in Oregon when I could see the clouds up close. Big, heavy clouds, the kind that--if you poked a finger into them--would retain the dent from your touch.

And the sun is weird. It’s brighter here, god, I have the migraines to prove it. But the sun, in the evening, it sits on the horizon and turns bright-hot pink, magenta. The sky darkens quickly and the sun burns from it like a Crayola commercial. Wild Strawberry on Periwinkle.

The sun sinks so rapidly, unlike flat Michigan, where it’s light outside until the sun is REALLY gone. Plus, Michigan’s farther north (duh) and the sun sets later. In northern Michigan, especially on the western edge, it’s light out well past 10 pm. The sun goes down, but at the edge of Lake Michigan there’s nothing to keep the light from hanging back over the horizon.

And my moon is so far. Everything else in the sky is so much closer, but the moon.... The moon doesn’t show until it’s too far overhead. I’m used to seeing the moon low in the sky, huge and yellow. Maybe I just haven’t gotten out at the right times. I hope.

When I was 9 or 10, my brother and I had a babysitter one crispy Sunday night in October. There was a full moon, fat and orange, sitting right over the roof of the Callahans’ house across the street. It was so huge that it almost drooped, the kind of moon that people leave their houses to see. Our babysitter, theater-type, dared me to kneel down at the edge of Springbrook Avenue and shout, “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” and that moon was so enchanting that I did it. Thus began my affair....